The body of American former royal Kasia Gallanio was found curled up with her lapdog, Honey, in the bed of her luxury condo on the Spanish coast on May 29. News reports in the following days suggested she was suspected of suffering a drug overdose, but close friends have told The Daily Beast they think this is an unlikely scenario for a fitness fanatic who never touched narcotics.
The controversial claim did not surface in the press in Spain. where the investigation was being carried out, but in newspapers in France, the home of her 73-year-old ex-husband, Sheikh Abdelaziz bin Khalifa Al Thani, the uncle of the emir of Qatar and the Gulf state’s former minister of oil and finance.
The royals were engaged in a bitter battle for custody of their daughters, 17-year-old twins and a 15-year-old who had reportedly accused her father of sexual misconduct and was interviewed by officers from France’s Brigade for the Protection of Minors (BPM).
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Le Parisien newspaper reported that the younger daughter had accused her father of “incestuous aggression in the paternal home from the ages of 9 to 15.” According to excerpts from a police complaint shared by Gallanio’s French lawyer, Sabrina Boesch, the teen said that her father made her sleep in his bed from a young age. “From when I was small, I slept in my father’s bed,” she reportedly said, adding that her parents had separate sleeping rooms. “But after my mother left, it became an obligation.” French police working on behalf of the Childhood Social Assistance (ASE) are investigating the matter, according to several French news outlets and Boesch.
Gallanio, who was born in Los Angeles, met the royal in Paris after he was exiled there after an attempted coup in Qatar. She converted to Islam shortly after they married, but the marriage didn’t last and they divorced in 2012. The twins lived with her in Spain and the younger daughter lived in Paris during the increasingly brutal custody battle. In recent months, Gallanio posted about the ordeal on her Instagram page. “Children should NEVER be used as victims or pawns when the parents can’t get along. The father of my children Prince Abdulaziz Khalifa Al Thani has not paid one cent for child support for over a year now to help me support and raise our children,” she wrote March 19, alongside a photo of a newspaper clipping. “In my opinion this is outrageous, unfair, embarrassing and a real shame. No matter on what financial level or status you are. It’s really immoral because again the kids are the casualty. However it’s more humiliating when you are a billionaire prince of QATAR.” Sheikh Abdelaziz has never publicly acknowledged the accusation, either to confirm or deny it.
The Daily Beast has spoken to a number of Gallanio’s close friends—on and off the record—about the princess’s lifestyle, and whether or not she abused drugs or alcohol, or was on prescription meds. No one in her immediate circle believes she died from substance abuse. They say she didn’t use drugs and was a casual “glass of red wine in the evening” drinker with a low tolerance for alcohol and an obsession about her diet and figure. “I am 100 percent sure she did not die of an overdose,” her friend and confidant Louis Spagnuolo, an American entrepreneur, told The Daily Beast. “And she did not commit suicide. She would have never left her daughters, and she did not use drugs.”
Spagnuolo says Galliano, a moderate practicing Muslim, was a health and fitness freak, spending every day dedicated to her wellness through prayer, meditation, exercise, vitamin supplements, and various beauty treatments—much of which she documented on her Instagram page—and was not one who would use any form of narcotic. She also regularly had cryoablation treatment, according to her social media, which can be used to treat any number of ailments, both aesthetic and medical, including cancer.
Gallanio’s life in Marbella, where she lived between her condo and a beachfront villa, was demonstrably enviable—or at least that is the impression she curated on her social media for her more than half a million followers. She was an influencer who was the star of the glitterati scene, a frequent attendee at lavish parties, a constant visible lunch date with girlfriends, and a regular at the resort city’s spas and beauty farms. She was also generous, her friends insist, often giving away her expensive clothing and designer handbags after she had used them just once. As with many modern stars, being photographed twice in the same ensemble is a bad look, her friends say. But under the glitter she was just human, says Spagnuolo. “She didn’t act like a princess,” Spagnuolo said. “She only had love for everyone around her.”
A report in the Daily Mail quoting her “secret boyfriend”—the nightclub manager and singer Bruce Baps—claimed that Gallanio had recently been robbed and beaten up, and that she feared for her life. Friends close to her said they had not heard of the alleged break-in. The Marbella police department told The Daily Beast that there is no record of a break-in at the luxury apartment complex, which is one of Puerto Banús’ top properties with high security and ample surveillance cameras. Attempts to clarify the information with Baps were unsuccessful because he said he had spoken exclusively with the Mail and would not give other interviews.
Gallanio’s friends also say that she was shaken by the death of her close friend Ahmed Ashmawi, a Saudi playboy who also lived in Marbella and died recently after a long battle with cancer. She had even tattooed his name on her body, according to her social media posts, and marked his death with a black box on her Instagram page.
Galliano's lawyer Boesch told The Daily Beast that her client was devastated by a recent decision by the French court to award custody of the daughters to the prince. “I think that, above all, she has died of grief,” she said. But her friends did not agree. “Someone else decided it was time for her to die,” a friend of Gallanio’s told The Daily Beast. “She did not make that decision.”
The initial results of Gallanio’s autopsy were inconclusive, according to the Marbella coroner. Toxicology reports could take a further two weeks and even then, it may be hard to decipher her time of death or other circumstances. But her friends hope that the investigation into her death does not end with her final autopsy. “They need to look at who had the means and the motive to want her dead,” the friend said. “That’s where the answer to this mystery lies.”
Sheikh Abdelaziz’s French lawyer’s office told The Daily Beast that he would not be commenting on his ex-wife’s “tragic” death until the final autopsy report is in.
